Page 22 of She Was Made for Me

A reluctant smile plays at the corner of her mouth, but I can see she’s trying to fight it. “You were right. We can’t modernize this place.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline. “You’re serious?”

She nods, gesturing to the books in my arms, and I look down.Restoring a House in the City—that one I haven’t read. But the other two—Bricks & Brownstone, andOld Brooklyn Heights—are books I know well.

Wow. I was not expecting this.

“I did some reading over the weekend, and I think the history of these townhouses is important. We can’t strip that away.”

I glance up at her, warmth suffusing my chest. She actually paid attention to the things I said. She cared enough to purchase these books and spend time reading them.

“And what about your dad?”

“Well… yeah.” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, nibbling at it in thought. God, it’s cute when she does that. I force my gaze back to the books.

After a moment, she says, “It’s important to me that he’s happy with the project.”

“Yeah, it is to me too.”

“So, maybe there’s some sort of compromise we can come up with. Like, we split it into multiple apartments, but we keep the original features.”

I shift the books to my other arm, thinking. “Maybe. But we’d still have to lose a lot of the history to do that, because we’d have to change so much to accommodate a kitchen and bathroom on every floor.”

Her shoulders slump. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“But… what if we did two apartments, each split over a couple levels? Then we could keep a lot of the original features, but still provide two separate places.” I scratch at my unkempt beard, considering how this could work. “Basement and first floor could be one apartment, and they get the yard, then the top two are another.”

Violet gazes at me, her head cocked to one side in thought. “I could see that.” Her eyes sparkle as she turns the idea over in her mind. “We’d keep the historical features throughout the building, like the original floors and the plaster moldings and the fireplaces, but we could also add some modern touches in unexpected ways, like a bold color palette, and brass fixtures in the kitchen and bathroom.”

I nod, the image forming in my head. I can absolutely see how that could work. It’s like what I do with cabins back in Maine—I preserve what history I can, but I also add in more modern elements like bigger windows. And, you know, running water.

“I like it,” I say. “And I think your dad will too. He wants the apartments to appeal to buyers, which is far more likely to happen if they’re unique. And that’s exactly what we’ll create.”

“Okay,” Violet says slowly, nodding. “Yeah, okay. I trust you.”

“Really?” I shouldn’t pull at this thread, but the word is out of my mouth before I can think twice.

Her eyes narrow slightly as she studies my face. I don’t know why she would trust me. I’ve lied to her about what happened the day we met, and I’ve been nothing but an asshole around her since. I hate myself for it.

“Yes,” she says at last.

It feels so good to finally agree about the project that I can’t help but grin. She grins right back. We gaze at each other a moment longer, the light in Violet’s eyes shifting from excited to something else, something more heated. The silence between us becomes heavy and loaded, and Violet swallows, running her tongue across her bottom lip as she looks at me.

I tear my gaze away, frustrated.Thisis why I need to keep her at arm’s length, because the minute we get along, the feeling between us shifts back to what it was the day we met at Joe’s. That feeling where we connected and flirted and both saw something more there.

Something we can’t have.

“Great, well, we agree then,” I mutter, turning to head back into the parlor room.

Violet hesitates, then follows me in. She stops short when her eyes land on the desk in the corner, with the fold-out chair tucked behind it.

Oh, shit. I’d forgotten about that.

“Is that… for me?” she asks uncertainly.

“Yep.” I set her books down on top, admiring the finish. It’s nothing fancy; an old door I found lying in the basement that was far too gone to be used as a door again, but once I varnished it and added legs, it made a great desk. It’s big enough to spread her shit out, and hopefully stop her from hunching over her laptop so much.

She wanders across and sets her bag down, looking at the desk. “Did you make this?”

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